Developmental science aims to explain development across the lifespan. Jerome Kagan observed that the same behavior can occur for different reasons, and differing behaviors can occur for the same ...reason. To help account for persistence, desistence, and transformation of behavior across development, Kagan introduced various types of continuity and discontinuity of forms and functions of behavior. This framework provides opportunities for identifying explanatory mechanisms in behavior development. However, misconceptions remain in applying the concepts that Kagan introduced. Much of the literature assumes developmental continuity in constructs without examining whether assumptions are supported, leading to faulty developmental inferences. For instance, the use of the same measure across time to assess development assumes that the behavior occurs for the same reason across time (homotypic continuity). In addition, just because one behavior predicts a different behavior at a later time does not necessarily indicate that age-differing behaviors occur for the same reason (heterotypic continuity). This review aims to advance conceptualizations of continuity and discontinuity from a contemporary perspective with aims to improve mechanistic understanding of behavior development across the lifespan. To better align behaviors, functions, and mechanisms, research should (a) examine (dis)continuity of individual behaviors rather than merely syndromes, (b) identify the function(s) of the given behavior(s), and (c) identify the cognitive and biological processes that underlie the behavior-function pairs. Incorporating examples from research on development of humans and nonhuman animals, I discuss challenges from work that has followed Kagan's ideas and ways to advance understanding of continuity and discontinuity across development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
Poorer language ability has been shown to predict the development of externalizing behavior problems such as aggression and conduct problems. However, the developmental process that links poorer ...language ability to externalizing problems is unclear. The present study examined (a) whether within-child changes in language ability predict within-child changes in externalizing problems, (b) whether social skills are a potential mechanism that explains the association between language ability and externalizing problems, and (c) whether there are sex-related differences in the association between language ability and externalizing problems. The present study examined these questions in children (N = 1,364) followed annually from 4 to 10 years of age. Language ability was assessed by a measure of receptive language (i.e., vocabulary). Externalizing problems were rated by mothers and teachers. Social skills were rated by mothers, fathers, and teachers. Findings showed that within-child changes in language ability predicted within-child changes in externalizing problems, even controlling for the family's income-to-needs ratio. We found that social skills partially mediated the association between poorer language ability and later externalizing problems, but this was limited to a between-person effect. There was not strong evidence of sex-related differences in the association. Findings suggest that language ability may play a role in the development of externalizing problems for boys and girls, and that social skills may be a mechanism that partially explains how poorer language ability leads to the development of externalizing problems. Or, alternatively, language ability, social skills, and externalizing problems may partially share common causes.
Dynamics of Hierarchical Task Representations Cellier, Dillan; Petersen, Isaac T; Hwang, Kai
The Journal of neuroscience,
2022-Sep-21, 2022-09-21, 20220921, Volume:
42, Issue:
38
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Task representations are critical for cognitive control and adaptive behavior. The hierarchical organization of task representations allows humans to maintain goals, integrate information across ...varying contexts, and select potential responses. In this study we characterized the structure and interactive dynamics of task representations that facilitate cognitive control. Human participants (both males and females) performed a hierarchical task that required them to select a response rule while considering the contingencies from different contextual inputs. By applying time- and frequency-resolved representational similarity analysis to human electroencephalography data, we characterized properties of task representations that are otherwise difficult to observe. We found that participants formed multiple representations of task-relevant contexts and features from the presented stimuli, beyond simple stimulus-response mappings. These disparate representations were hierarchically structured, with higher-order contextual representations dominantly influencing subordinate representations of task features and response rules. Furthermore, this cascade of top-down interactions facilitated faster responses. Our results describe key properties of task representations that support hierarchical cognitive control.
Humans can adjust their actions in response to contingencies imposed by the environment. Although it has long been hypothesized that this ability depends on mental representations of tasks, the neural dynamics of task representations have been difficult to characterize. Our study used electroencephalography data from human participants to demonstrate the neural organization and interactive dynamics of task representations. Our results revealed a top-down, hierarchically organized representational structure that encoded multiple contexts and features from the environment. To support cognitive control, higher-level contextual representations influenced subordinate representations of task-relevant features and potential responses, facilitating response selection in a context-dependent manner. Our results provide direct evidence of organizational properties of task representations, which are cornerstones of cognitive control theories.
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•Canonical EEG analyses conflate neural oscillations with the aperiodic signal.•From early childhood to adulthood, the aperiodic signal flattens in slope.•Dominant posterior ...oscillations shift from theta to alpha around 7–8 years old.•Theta oscillations transition from posterior dominant to anterior dominant with age.
Intrinsic, unconstrained neural activity exhibits rich spatial, temporal, and spectral organization that undergoes continuous refinement from childhood through adolescence. The goal of this study was to investigate the development of theta (4−8 Hertz) and alpha (8−12 Hertz) oscillations from early childhood to adulthood (years 3–24), as these oscillations play a fundamental role in cognitive function. We analyzed eyes-open, resting-state EEG data from 96 participants to estimate genuine oscillations separately from the aperiodic (1/f) signal. We examined age-related differences in the aperiodic signal (slope and offset), as well as the peak frequency and power of the dominant posterior oscillation. For the aperiodic signal, we found that both the aperiodic slope and offset decreased with age. For the dominant oscillation, we found that peak frequency, but not power, increased with age. Critically, early childhood (ages 3–7) was characterized by a dominance of theta oscillations in posterior electrodes, whereas peak frequency of the dominant oscillation in the alpha range increased between ages 7 and 24. Furthermore, theta oscillations displayed a topographical transition from dominance in posterior electrodes in early childhood to anterior electrodes in adulthood. Our results provide a quantitative description of the development of theta and alpha oscillations.
Considerable support exists for higher-order dimensional conceptualizations of psychopathology in adults. A growing body of work has focused on understanding the structure of general and specific ...psychopathology in children and adolescents. No prior meta-analysis has examined whether the strength of the general psychopathology factor (
p
factor)—measured by explained common variance (ECV)—changes from childhood to adolescence. The primary objective of this multilevel meta-analysis was to determine whether general psychopathology strength changes across development (i.e. across ages) in childhood and adolescence. Several databases were searched in November 2021; 65 studies, with 110 effect sizes (ECV), nested within shared data sources, were identified. Included empirical studies used a factor analytic modeling approach that estimated latent factors for child/adolescent internalizing, externalizing, and optionally thought-disordered psychopathology, and a general factor. Studies spanned ages 2–17 years. Across ages, general psychopathology explained over half (~ 56%) of the reliable variance in symptoms of psychopathology. Age-moderation analyses revealed that general factor strength remained stable across ages, suggesting that general psychopathology strength does not significantly change across childhood to adolescence. Even if the structure of psychopathology changes with development, the prominence of general psychopathology across development has important implications for future research and intervention.
Many psychological constructs show heterotypic continuity—their behavioral manifestations change with development but their meaning remains the same. However, research has paid little attention to ...how to account for heterotypic continuity. A promising approach to account for heterotypic continuity is creating a developmental scale using vertical scaling. A simulation was conducted to compare creating a developmental scale using vertical scaling to traditional approaches of longitudinal assessment. Traditional approaches that failed to account for heterotypic continuity resulted in less accurate growth estimates, at the person‐ and group level. Findings suggest that ignoring heterotypic continuity may result in faulty developmental inferences. Creating a developmental scale with vertical scaling is recommended to link different measures across time and account for heterotypic continuity.
•Many constructs show heterotypic continuity, but few studies account for it.•Not accounting for heterotypic continuity yields faulty developmental inferences.•Longitudinal assessment over lengthy ...spans may require changing measures over time.•Developmental scaling can place different measures over time on the same scale.•Accounting for heterotypic continuity will improve understanding of development.
Many psychological constructs show heterotypic continuity—their behavioral manifestations change with development but their meaning remains the same (e.g., externalizing problems). However, research has paid little attention to how to account for heterotypic continuity. Conceptual and methodological challenges of heterotypic continuity may prevent researchers from examining lengthy developmental spans. Developmental theory requires that measurement accommodate changes in manifestation of constructs. Simulation and empirical work demonstrate that failure to account for heterotypic continuity when collecting or analyzing longitudinal data results in faulty developmental inferences. Accounting for heterotypic continuity may require using different measures across time with approaches that link measures on a comparable scale. Creating a developmental scale (i.e., developmental scaling) is recommended to link measures across time and account for heterotypic continuity, which is crucial in understanding development across the lifespan. The current synthesized review defines heterotypic continuity, describes how to identify it, and presents solutions to account for it. We note challenges of addressing heterotypic continuity, and propose steps in leveraging opportunities it creates to advance empirical study of development.
Open science practices, such as pre‐registration and data sharing, increase transparency and may improve the replicability of developmental science. However, developmental science has lagged behind ...other fields in implementing open science practices. This lag may arise from unique challenges and considerations of longitudinal research. In this paper, preliminary guidelines are provided for adapting open science practices to longitudinal research to facilitate researchers' use of these practices. The guidelines propose a serial and modular approach to registration that includes an initial pre‐registration of the methods and focal hypotheses of the longitudinal study, along with subsequent pre‐ or co‐registered questions, hypotheses, and analysis plans associated with specific papers. Researchers are encouraged to share their research materials and relevant data with associated papers and to report sufficient information for replicability. In addition, there should be careful consideration of requirements regarding the timing of data sharing, to avoid disincentivizing longitudinal research.
Accuracy has several elements, not all of which have received equal attention in the field of clinical psychology. Calibration, the degree to which a probabilistic estimate of an event reflects the ...true underlying probability of the event, has largely been neglected in the field of clinical psychology in favor of other components of accuracy such as discrimination (e.g., sensitivity, specificity, area under the receiver operating characteristic curve). Although it is frequently overlooked, calibration is a critical component of accuracy with particular relevance for prognostic models and risk-assessment tools. With advances in personalized medicine and the increasing use of probabilistic (0% to 100%) estimates and predictions in mental health research, the need for careful attention to calibration has become increasingly important.
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